A Win At Littlefoot
After two straight second place finishes at the Littlefoot Triathlon the past two years, I went into this race hungry for the win. My fiancee, Amy Dannwolf, nearly thwarted my hopes. With her excellent work as race director, the race attracted a solid pro field and winning would be a challenge.
My primary focus for this race was swimming well for the first 250m. I thought that as long as I got out well then my bike and run would come together. I’m constantly getting out of the water “out” of the race and I needed to change that.
I swam enough of a warmup to adjust to the 53 degree water and I was ready to go. From the horn I got out well and once the scrum settled I got on my teammate Matt Balzer’s feet. From there I was golden. My Rocket Science wetsuit felt great as usual and I felt great on the swim. Branden Rakita got a lead of the swim but only about 20 seconds. Once on the bike, I caught him a bit over halfway through. I’ve been focusing on my swim big time this spring so I was very happy to manage the fastest bike split of the day. The bike felt awesome and the Littlefoot bike course is one of my favorites. Smooth roads that you can constantly lay down the pressure. Brandon beat me through T2 but a quarter mile into the run I had the lead. This felt strange. I’m used to counting down my place throughout the run as I get by people. This time I just had to make sure I didn’t get caught! I ran well, the second fastest run split to my teammate Josh Merrick. 16:42 for me for the 5k (Josh crushed it, nearly going sub 16 on a course that I hand wheel measured).
Jordan Jones at Littlefoot Triathlon
Next up is the Ixtapa Pan Am ITU Continental Cup this Saturday morning in Ixtapa, Mexico. My first goal is to get around top 15 to get some decent ITU points but of course I want to do better than that. Like last week, if I can get out well on the swim then I’ll be in good position and can do very well. After Mazatlan I was ranked 24th in the US and I want to move up from that.
